Biotech firm targets food and oil sectors

Published on 29/07/2012 00:00

A SCOTTISH drugs industry company is expanding into food and drink and even oil and gas after moving into 
bigger premises and doubling its turnover in the past two years.

Solid Form Solutions (SFS), which develops chemicals for four of the five biggest global drugs companies, will use the skills it has developed for 
medicines to break into other industries.

SFS has doubled its turnover to £2 million over the past two years by winning business from companies in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Stephen Watt, chief executive at SFS and one of the company’s founders, said: “Most pharmaceuticals development work happens outside the UK and we have to go where the markets are. We still bring money into the UK economy from these markets, but we are keen to increase the 7 per cent of business we currently do in our home market.”

The firm has moved into a purpose-built facility at the Edinburgh Technopole, the 
science park that the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor property vehicle sold last month to LaSalle Investment Management for £7m.

SFS was previously based at the “incubator” facility at 
Roslin BioCentre.

The firm received a grant of £90,000 from Scottish Enterprise to meet about a quarter of the fit-out costs for its new laboratories and also hailed the help it has had from Scottish Development International when trying to break into overseas markets.

Since the company was founded in 2008 it has grown its headcount to 25, and Watt expects to take on a further five or six staff this year.

Watt’s plan is to grow 
the firm’s staffing level to 50, although the timescale will 
depend on demand for its new analytical services.